Flowers are Sexy! (And Why Not ... They're Reproductive Thingies)
flower |flou(-)r|noun Botany the seed-bearing part of a plant, consisting of reproductive organs (stamens and carpels) that are typically surrounded by a brightly colored corolla (petals) and a green calyx (sepals).
Flowers make a potentially great photographic subject ... after all, the beauty has already been created by Nature/The Cosmos/God ...
"Nature is the Art of God" (Sir Thomas Browne)
But, in photographing flowers (and other subjects), it's how the subject is isolated from all around it that can make or break its image.
A few things to keep in mind when photographing flowers:
1) Decide when composing your image, if it's a "portrait," or a "documentary" - is the intent to present it as "the star of the show" or, a supporting actor/actress on a crowded stage
2) If it's a portrait ... even a double-portrait ... be especially careful not to include distracting elements ... even other flowers could steal attention from the star-of-the-show if they are in the frame, sharply focused and or brightly colored/lighted.
Of course, the basics apply as well as with most photographs ... exposure, composition, depth-of-field ...
Enough verbiage ... you decide if the images included are "sexy."
All Rights Reserved/A. Macarthur
1) Deptford Pinks
2) Deptford Pinks Clusters; note the out-of-focus background enabled by the use of a long zoom (400 mm) which tends to compress depth-of-field, and, a wide aperture which gives a shallow depth-of-field.
3) The macro/closeup image and blurred background intensify an otherwise familiar subject; this adds to the "sexy," intimate sense of the image.
4) Daisies intertwined by the cast shadow of the taller, closer flower.
5) This cornflower occupies less of the frame than the undefined background, but it's detail and sharp focus more than balance the composition.
6) Patience sometimes pays off ... especially when you have a strategy; I watched this bee flit from flower-to-flower, rather than flit with it, I picked out a flower, focused, waited and hoped ... sometimes we make our own "luck."
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In photography and life, sometimes we make our own "luck."
Click on the images ... they look better when isolated.
I see that you covered the bees but not the birds... so you didn't cover sex totally, LOL!
Lovely shots. Each one is perfect in color, texture and guests. Sorry I didn't get to visit them last night... Things were going on.
Mike,
The flower is a Gardenia. What likely occurred is overexposure of the white flower due to the default metering structure of the iPhone. The camera likely meters the entire scene and comes up with an average exposure setting based on a number of matrix segments.
It seems to have read the composition as "dark" thus requiring lightening overall; if you used flash (the 4G has one), that lightened the exposure even more altogether washing out the flower detail.
Not sure if this can be compensated for with an iPhone, but if you re-take the shot, see if you can get closer to the flower (filling the frame to the extent possible). That might crop out enough of the dark area to give a shorter exposure time.
These are just beautiful. Eileen always wanted to put together a book called "Ditch Flowers of New Mexico" because I was always stopping and taking pictures of the flora in ditches or acequias as they are called up there. We were always taking the back roads to every where.
I just love this kind of thing.
Steve,
Being in the era of self-publishing, you can do that book, or, if you have a Flickr account, you can do a slideshow and post it for all to enjoy.
In fact, here's one ...